


Girls' Hangout Day

by prettyfaroutman



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Gen, Slurs, abuse mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 01:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2563970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyfaroutman/pseuds/prettyfaroutman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I’ve been thinking about Meg a ton this week [after Hero's birthday], wondering if her feelings will be acknowledged and also how/whether she’ll end up on Team Hero…so I ficced it, woo!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Girls' Hangout Day

All she can feel as she walks home in the crisp, early spring night is the vibration in her hand from where she hit him. Her palm stings a bit still, but it’s far more satisfying to feel the aftereffect of hitting him than it was when she threw her drink in his face a few weeks ago. She hopes he still feels the residue of her anger, too. She hopes her hand left a fucking brand of rage on his face, so that wherever he goes, people will always know what a giant dick he is. He should be glad she didn’t claw his damn eyes out.

When she gets home, she toes off her kitten heels by the door, absently registering a large run in her stockings at her right heel. From the sitting room her mother calls, “Meggie…?” sounding more confused than worried; Meg doesn’t respond before climbing the stairs in a daze. Thankfully, her mother leaves her in peace as she face plants on her pink and green duvet.

***

When she wakes, the sun is full and clear. She feels better rested than usual, and instinctively reaches for her phone to see if Robbie texted her, but as she presses the display button the whole disgusting scene floods back to her. She feels herself flinch at the thought of him, and is relieved when she has no texts or missed calls. Belatedly, she realizes that her makeup has smeared on the corner of the duvet that she had crafted into a makeshift pillow in her sleep. With a heavy sigh, she gets up and strips the bed and her wrinkled party dress, throws on her fuzzy pink robe and matching slippers, and lugs the offending duvet cover to the laundry basket.

Several hours later, she’s showered, made up, and well fed — she doesn’t tell her mother anything is wrong, but her mother seems to sense it anyway, and so makes chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream. Today was supposed to be a girls’ hangout day, which was why her gift for Hero had been a gift certificate for mani/pedis together. But thinking about Hero had made her head swirl with confusion when she made the mistake of allowing her mind to wander in the shower, so she decides to keep herself busy not thinking. She cleans her room, finishes her physics problem set and her history research, offers to help her mother with the grocery shopping for the week, sets aside a flawless outfit for school the next day, and still has time to watch three episodes of Gossip Girl before bed. It’s only as she’s lying in bed hoping for sleep to quiet her whirring brain that she wonders what will happen at school the next day if she sees The Asshole (she can’t even think his name), or Hero, or if people call her names like they did after Pedro’s party. She feels a single tear slip onto her pillow, but turns defiantly to her other side and resolves not to cry any more.

***

Ursula and Balthazar are the only ones who join her at the lunch table the next day. Bea and Hero don’t appear to be at school at all; Ben comes by, but instead of joining them he merely rests a hand on Ursula’s shoulder and gives her a significant look before striding with purpose toward the parking lot, car keys in hand. The table is quiet, which Meg appreciates even though it seems to heighten the buzz of the tables around them. She sees Claudio sitting with Pedro and John a few tables away, but she can feel them ignoring her table, just as Balthazar and Ursula studiously ignore them in kind.

She hasn’t seen The Asshole yet today, and she doesn’t know how to feel about that. It’s a relief not to see him, but at the same time she knows he won’t disappear forever, so she’s actively dreading the first glimpse of him, and it’s exhausting. She imagines herself hitting him again in front of everyone at lunch. The thought satisfies her briefly.

At some point, Meg notices that Ursula has turned her head to the table behind them, listening. The words start to come into focus as Meg comes out of her daydream. “…like, can you believe she’d do that to him? What a bitch.” “I don’t know…he’s cute, but given the choice I’d probably pick Robbie, too. He’s just so…grown up.” “That doesn’t excuse her, though, does it?” Meg realizes that Ursula is frozen on the spot listening to this, and Balthazar has suddenly become very interested in the crust of his sandwich. She feels the anger rising in her, and jumps up from the table.

“You know, actually, Robbie is the biggest child at Messina High, so Hero is probably the one you should feel sorry for.” She doesn’t know why she’s defending Hero, the one who exposed Robbie for the douche that he is, but it feels right to her in the moment.

“Doesn’t that make you a cradle robber then?” the first girl asks, smirking. “Or maybe more like a child abuser?” The second girl fake hits the first, laughing cruelly.

Meg hears an incoherent shriek leave her own mouth. “If you can’t see that Robbie’s the asshole here, then you’re just as childish as he is!”

“Oh, here comes the drama queen!”

“That’s enough.” Ursula’s voice is quiet but firm. “Let’s go, Meg.” The anger is practically leaping out of her body, but she allows Ursula to lead her away by the arm. She can hear Balthazar collecting their things from the table and following them out to the grass, even as the two shitty girls laugh even harder.

***

She ditches school in the afternoon, despite Ursula’s protests to stay and talk, which helps only briefly before she realizes she has nowhere to go. She can’t go home, even though her mother won’t be there ’til much later. She already did all the cleaning and homework that she could think to do the day before, and she can’t fathom the thought of being trapped at home with nothing to do. But all her other haunts have too many memories of The Asshole attached to them. The beach is where they’d first hooked up, the coffee shop is where they’d go during the summer to share a malt, two straws in one cup and everything. The park is where he practiced football now that he was off the team and couldn’t practice on the actual football pitch. The only place she can think where she hadn’t been with him more than once or twice was the top of the big hill. Normally she wouldn’t be interested in expending the effort to get to the top of the hill, but today she welcomes the challenge. She unstraps her platforms and follows the side of the road, chilly grass poking up between her bare toes, walking faster than necessary just to feel the wind in her lungs.

She can’t help remembering that she defended Hero to those bullies, and yet just thinking of Hero brings a tightness to her chest that even her brisk walk can’t undo. It seems like a nightmare she can’t wake up from, that someone as sweet as Hero would hook up with her boyfriend. Of all the people he could have chosen to cheat with, why Hero? Why did it have to be one of the only two people Meg could confide in who hadn’t ever made her feel bad about being herself?

_No longer,_ she thinks, her legs pumping up the steep hill. _Ursula is it. She’s the only one now._

***

Sure enough, the quiet at the top of hill only lasts until the minute school gets out, at which point Meg feels her phone vibrating in her pocket. Ursula’s face, eyebrow raised and unimpressed as ever, pops up on the screen.

“Yeah, what?”

“Can I come over?”

“I’m not at home right now.”

“Well, can I come meet you wherever you are? I think we should talk.”

Meg twirls the end of her hair around her finger, thinking. “Look, I know what you’re going to say. I should have listened to you when you said he’s an idiot. You don’t have to gloat.”

“That’s not what I was going to say,” Ursula replies with a sigh. “Can I just meet you, please?”

“Fine. I’m at the top of the hill.”

***

Meg can see Ursula making her way up the hill. She briefly considers going down to meet her halfway, but gives in to her wayward instincts and remains, watching and waiting.

When Ursula finally makes it up the hill, she plops on the ground next to Meg, catching her breath. Meg stubbornly refuses to look at her, and Ursula allows the silence to stretch for a few minutes.

Finally, “I’m sorry I didn’t call you yesterday.”

Meg shifts on the ground, pulling her knees up to her chest. “Doesn’t matter.”

“I’m still sorry.”

Meg doesn’t know what to say, so she says nothing. Another long silence passes, but suddenly Meg’s earlier frustration rises to the surface.

“Why did you even come all the way up here, anyway? Just to apologize for not calling yesterday? You could have done that over the phone.”

“No, not just for that. I wanted to tell you…well, I wanted to pass along a message. From Hero. She says—“

“Why should I even want to hear what Hero has to say right now?” Her voice echoes out over the hillside, louder than she expected, but she doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter who hears her, at this point. She chances a glance at Ursula, whose face looks stricken.

“So…you believe him then? You believe what Claudio said?” When Meg doesn’t respond, Ursula continues, “What if it didn’t happen?”

“Oh, so then I guess I should just get back together with that asshole, then, huh? ‘No reason for you to be upset, Meg!’ Thanks for that.”

“God, no,” Ursula says. “He’s still an asshole. He should have spoken up and said that nothing happened.”

“But what if it did?” Meg squeaks, and she feels the tears she was trying to contain begin to leak out.

Ursula simply puts an arm around Meg’s shoulders while she cries quietly. After a while, Ursula says gently, “which do you think is more likely? Hero cheating on Claudio with her friend’s boyfriend, or Robbie failing to deny sleeping with someone he didn’t?”

Meg sniffles and almost has to laugh when Ursula phrases it that way. “Yeah,” she nods. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” The knot in her chest loosens just a touch. “But then how did this even start, if nothing happened?”

“I have no idea. But we’re just trying to convince everyone we can that Hero’s innocent, and we need your help.”

Meg nods again, and wipes her face with her wrist. “Is that the message from Hero? That she wants my help?”

“No, actually. That’s from me, and from Bea and Ben and Balthazar.”

“What did Hero say, then?”

“She wanted me to tell you how sorry she is that you got hurt at her party, too. She loves you, Meg.”

***

**Text message, 18 August 2014 19:32:12, Meg to Hero**

_bad bitches stick together. got ur back babe._


End file.
